Wednesday, November 3, 1999 Published at 17:45 GMT

No Bangladeshi planes over millennium

Biman is grounding its planes for commercial reasons

By South Asia analyst Aasiya Lodhi

The Bangladeshi airline, Biman, is to ground all its aircraft during the transition to the new millennium.

The Chairman of Biman, Ahsan Quadir, told the BBC that all the company's aircraft would be grounded for a seven-hour period till 0100 GMT on 1 January.

All flights have now been rescheduled to take off and land outside that period.

Mr Quadir maintained the airline had taken the decision based on commercial viability, and not because of safety fears.

He said very few customers had purchased tickets over the millennium changeover, and that it was in the airline's best interest to reschedule the flights.

Mr Quadir stressed BIM had gained all the necessary Y2K compliance certificates, and that it was confident there would be no safety problems.

BIM?s decision to ground its aeroplanes comes after two other regional airlines announced they too would not be running flights over the millennium transition.

Sri Lankan Airlines announced it would ground its aircraft for an eight-hour period because so few passengers had bought tickets.

Less than 10% of seats on flights to Colombo were reportedly booked before flight schedules were changed.

Like Biman, Sri Lankan Airlines insists its Y2K compliance programme is on track, as does Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), which is also grounding its aircraft.

But the airline has said that its decision is based on the risks to safety which could be posed by any possible computer malfunction.

Airline officials from all three companies say the decision to ground flights is in line with international standards - carriers such as Virgin have also cancelled flights.

However, a recent report from the US State Department singled out South Asia as being particularly ill prepared for the impact of the millennium bug computer problem.

Both India and Pakistan have issued strenuous denials, and Air India says its flights will run over the millennium period.

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), November 08, 1999

Answers

Hmmmmm. How many other airlines follow suit? I think that they are being just bit disingenuous. A 6-24 hour window of 'commercial non- viability' that just happens to coincide with the rollover?

Whatever their stated reason, I believe their caution in this circumstance is a good thing. But if many more airlines follow suit, Mr. Koskinen may not be on that flight he promised he would be on...

-- Arnie Rimmer (Arnie_Rimmer@usa.net), November 08, 1999.